Government announcements about future actions can influence agents’ economic choices today. How do beliefs about future government policy affect households’ borrowing, spending and debt paydown behavior? We study this question through the lens of student loan forgiveness in the United States, which following electoral promises, was announced in 2022 but never implemented due to judicial rulings. We conduct a customized information provision experiment embedded in a survey eliciting real-time beliefs about future debt forgiveness and repayment, which we link to credit bureau data, employment verification data, and nondurables consumption. Borrowers who are more optimistic about forgiveness reduce payments on student loans and increase non-durable spending, but postpone durable spending while they wait for uncertainty to resolve. Our results provide micro-evidence on the role of policy uncertainty in household decisionmaking, and have implications for government announcements and commitment policy.